Media's Responsibility To Our Society

Media's Responsibility to Our Society

I am opposed to government censorship. Let me get that right out in the open. I believe in the Freedom of Speech. I believe in the Freedom of Expression. I believe that we should all be allowed to safely and humanely let others know what we think and feel. I believe that art needs to be protected and I also believe that art needs to be supported by the State, because preserving and encouraging cultural development is part of what makes a society strong, rich and worth living in, regardless of the State's official stance on what the art might be expressing (which is to say, the State supported art may well oppose the nature of the State itself, or the officials of the State, or may challenge the dominant beliefs of the society for which the State exists). Those are my basic positions on the matter.

However, I believe that every freedom comes with an equal responsibility. In some cases, there are clear legal guidelines in place to protect society. An example is "Hate Speech." Such expression, however "honest" it may be as a reflection of one's beliefs, is presented in a manner that can lead to direct and presumably intentional harm toward an individual or group or may (inadvertently) incite violence toward its target, and therefore is a crime — but the same thoughts or feelings can always be conveyed in a manner befitting rational, civilized beings and without promoting criminal behavior, generally by discussing the root causes of said feelings or emotions rather than preaching or promoting reactions toward chosen target. It's usually called "taking a breath," or "thinking before you speak." Criminality comes into play when there is time for deliberation and the choice is made to present "ideas" in the way where they will likely result in harm.

Aside from the obvious, there are other ways in which our media-driven society needs to hold the producers and promoters of media accountable for the safety and security of the People. Because media is consumer driven, it is the consumer's responsibility to avoid, and therefore not reward, media product that is detrimental to the society. Likewise, it is the consumer's responsibility to reward media product that is beneficial to society through active participation and promotion of such media. Frequently there is a grey area between what is detrimental and what is not when regarding mass media, so let's take a look at some areas wherein we can see what affects our popular culture and what is positive or negative about it in the context of society.

Power of the Media

First let us address what media can do that is healthy for the greater society:
° It can create meaningful discussion
° It can educate
° It can inform society culturally
° It can bridge understandings between cultures
° It can enlighten
° It can illicit positive emotional responses
° It can raise important issues or reveal secrets
° It can encourage peace

Let us also address what media can do that is unhealthy for the greater society:
° It can generate negative stereotypes
° It can dumb down its audience
° It can mislead or misrepresent
° It can obfuscate the truth
° It can establish unrealistic or unhealthy expectations
° It can foster ignorance
° It can create a sense of fear or unease
° It can encourage violence

Basically, media can make us smarter or dumber, it can make us
optimistic or pessimistic, it can encourage positive behavior or
negative behavior. Media has the power to enrich society for future
generations or to dismantle social progress. Whether or not any
individual is aware of this at any moment, we are all being affected
either directly or indirectly by the messages being delivered through
all media platforms at any given time. It is a kind of butterfly
effect, wherein a message delivered at point A and transmitted through
point B will ultimately affect the recipient at point C. Sometimes the
message may take years for the ramifications to be realized, but that
does not absolve the creator or dispenser of the message.

There are many general topics that need to be considered before their
inclusion in a media product. These may have a relevant place,
depending upon how they are going to be used within context and what
the ultimate message taken from them will be. The end result could be
either positive or negative, but the media creator considering these
elements must also realize that his or her work may also be removed
from context and should therefore have a solid reason for creating it
that takes this into consideration.

Considerations

I think it is important to understand that our society vilifies some
things which are (or should be) harmless (such as nudity) while
exalting some things which are directly harmful (such as violence).
One could easily understand that the only reason nudity is dangerous is
because it is repressed, therefore it illicits more desire or a
stronger reaction than it would if it were more acceptable.
Additionally, nudity is only sexualized as a concept because it is
considered so dangerous. However, the depiction of a healthy, loving
sexual relationship potentially provides a positive role model. The
same argument cannot be made for depictions of violence. Violent
imagery is often created for the shear purpose of titillation, with the
apparent support of society at large. Yet such depictions of violence
have only served to desensitize people to the effects of real violence,
making it easier for them to commit violent acts in the real world.

Looking at the above list, the various topics should be examined to
learn how or why they may be incorporated into a media project in a
worthwhile fashion.

Rape or abuse: The litmus test here is the titillation factor. Is the
offender being portrayed in a manner glorifying his or her actions? Is
the offender appearing to be a stronger and therefore more desirable
character? Is there a context within which to understand the
offender's actions? While these questions must be considered, the
actual presentation of the act must be examined. An act of rape is a
horrific violation — if it is presented in a manner which reduces the
victim to a sex object for the viewer (or reader), that creates a
situation where the consumer of the media is identifying positively
with the violator and therefor breaking a boundary between a healthy
and respectful perspective that abuse is bad and the unhealthy
perspective that maybe it's okay sometimes. Perhaps the larger danger
looming here is that such representations of this behavior may actually
desensitize the audience with regard to the violence and violation.
Such desensitization leads to a willingness to turn the other way
rather than confront the crime, it also creates a framework from which
victims may be more likely to accept their abuse. In a way, mainstream
media has been grossly irresponsible with regard to the the
sexualization of abuse: whether it is the vocabulary of hip-hop music,
slasher movies or fashion spreads, not to mention the bottom-feeders of
reality television, young girls are fed a diet of misinformation that
they should be complacent in order to be desirable or popular. One
need look no further than the "Twilight" movie franchise to see sexy
and appealing tutorials on how to be an enabler in an abusive
relationship.

Violence: Physical and mental violence are often the driving force in
drama, and certainly offer a visceral way for an audience to connect to
the action of a story. Glamorizing violence becomes a tenuous
exercise, whether in the vein of "Scarface," "Natural Born Killers" or
the plethora of horror franchises populated with under-developed
characters being led to the slaughter on the movie side, even if the
end result is supposed to be an indictment of a violent lifestyle. Too
often the message is lost because the delivery melds into pop culture,
segments getting removed from context, or the product itself aspires to
be considered "cool." Novels tend to force violence into the greater
context of their narrative, but there is plenty of short fiction and
so-called documentary reporting that exists for little reason beyond
stimulation. In many ways, violence is the more acceptable
pornography, readily available for consumption, freely handed over to
young males with spiking testosterone levels. Gone, however, are the
days of violence being hard to watch — it seems like the violence and
gore on television at the start of the second decade of the 21st
century exceed what was available in R-rated films just ten or twenty
years earlier. While that may not be entirely true, it is safe to say
that violence has become much more acceptable in all forms of media
since "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" ushered in the "need" for
the PG-13 rating. Hollywood cannot ignore a moneymaker, and an
R-rating would have cut the profits from that sequel dramatically, so
the PG-13 rating had to be conceived to allow an ostensibly R-rated
kids' movie to get released as it was rather than simply edit out two
minutes of unnecessary film. The PG-13 rating was heinous trickery and
ushered in a slew of overtly violent (though often bloodless) movies
that could be targeted directly at children without recourse. After a
few years, however, "Terminator 2" managed the unthinkable: to target
an R-rated movie almost exclusively at fourteen year old boys. It
wasn't really unthinkable, of course, because audiences had been
desensitized enough that no one blinked and "T2" became a huge
blockbuster. Meanwhile, legitimate films with heady moral lessons that
refused to glamorize their sex and violence were slapped with tougher
and tougher ratings, culminating in the brazen but non-explicit "Bad
Lieutenant" getting an NC-17 rating in 1992 while R-rated fare such as
"Reservoir Dogs" began showcasing Tarantino's obsession with violence
as beauty and comic gag, "Basic Instinct" made the probable killer and
sex object pointlessly interchangeable, and Steven Segal brought a new
level of sadism to his "heroics" in "Under Siege." The bottom line,
the only entry from this list that would turn the viewer off of
violence was the openly moral tale from "Bad Lieutenant," whereas
violence was merely a turn-on in the others. The worst of the bunch,
the ludicrous "Under Siege," actually placed its "hero" in a position
to be respected for gleefully going overboard in his lustful but
supposedly justified killings. Whether the cartoonish nature of
over-the-top violence is more detrimental than a realistic scene where
someone is slapped around remains to be seen, but there are plenty of
characters doing that in film and television without repercussion, and
the results for the viewers are always going to be cumulative.

Child Sexuality: Nowhere is this a more prevalent issue than in
tween-oriented product. The Disney Channel and it's shows like "Hannah
Montana" and others appear very chaste on the surface and in fact never
involve any sexual interaction, but they are sometimes rife with
innuendo and certainly style their lead characters in glamorous and
"sexy" outfits that are befitting much older characters. Ever since
the rise of Madonna in the music scene of the 80s, younger kids,
especially younger girls, have tried to emulate the fashions that they
think are popular or "hot." Oftentimes this means dressing in highly
suggestive clothing whether the kid wearing it realizes this or not.
Watching a video of six and seven year old girls dancing around in
suggestive costumes to the song "All the Single Ladies" during some
competition immortalized for the world on YouTube drives home the
disconnect that so many people appear to have. These are children.
They are not meant to be sexy to anyone. They have not even approached
puberty yet. Let them be kids. Instead, we live in a world that even
post-JonBenet Ramsey still has people who insist on treating their
little girls like fashion dolls. Beauty contests for children still
force their contestants to parade around in bathing suit competitions,
which serves no conceivable purpose beyond forcing a little girl to
learn how to please others as a subservient object. Such events are
little more than training platforms for these kids, but it is a lesson
that may not serve their best interests or their future safety. While
I have nothing against beauty contests for adults aside from their
innate pointlessness, I believe that they should be reserved for adults
or at least that the types or style of competition remain "age
appropriate." The subjective nature of this has changed severely over
the past fifty years, one might think based upon the images we find on
television and in progressively younger music acts whose album covers
and music videos portray seductiveness at virtually any age. Of
course, it does not hurt to remind us that Shirley Temple was sold on
sex appeal and radiated an adult charm in her "harmless" flirtations
with leading men in her movies. In fact, there were sexy nymphets in
the silent film era, so this is nothing exactly new. What is new,
however, is the overt nature of the sexuality being presented by teen,
tween and pre-teen actors, musicians and models. It is not a question
of whether the film "Lolita" or its literary source go too far in
expounding upon the sexuality of a young girl — it is a question of
fostering an attitude in society that young girls ought to aspire to
create sexual longings in older men, much less boys, before they are of
an age where they would naturally feel compelled to do this for
themselves.

Promiscuous behavior, Drug or alcohol use Rude or explicit language,
Simulated illegal behavior and Explicit illegal behavior: These items
seem fairly obvious. The film industry has taken it at least partially
upon itself to police the occurrences of cigarette smoking in movies
and television. There are rules about drinking alcohol on network TV,
use of profanity and certain other activities. However, it seems there
are no rules on vulgarity, especially with regard to comedy shows. It
could be argued that there is a decided lack of "class" in our society
today as a result of the anything goes mentality of rude, vulgar,
promiscuous and often just plain stupid behavior put forth in the name
of comedy. While some of it may be outright funny and occasionally
have an intelligent and meaningful point behind it (such as in "There's
Something About Mary"), crassness tends to take the lead and overshadow
any underlying themes. The introduction of more obviously crass,
lowbrow humor has led to a proliferation of junk from "Jackass" down to
"Three and a Half Men," where fart jokes reign supreme and a masters
course could be taught in idiocy. It is no surprise that these types
of programs have been popular: our media has been working hard to dumb
everyone down for many years because it makes it easier to sell to a
wider audience. The sad truth is that bad behavior sells. And the
wider it sells, the more acceptable it becomes. Beyond that, the
behavior becomes mandatory as emulation leads to expectation. It is
not a far stretch to suggest that our media is breeding petty
criminals, addicts and jerks. At the very least, our media is a
breeding ground for too many reality show aspirants, people who act as
though they are participating in one of their favorite shows about
losers even when there are no cameras rolling. Series like "The Hills"
or "The Jersey Shore" may seem like they are worlds apart, but they
share the common denominator of showcasing people who do not deserve
either our attention or our respect, yet these programs insist on
glamorizing their subjects and turning them into hollow celebrities.

Unrealistic examples of a "standard of beauty": While this is a
constant staple of daytime talk shows on television, these same
programs are filled with the type of advertising that undoes their
message, however cynically presented. It is true that there are
disproportionate numbers of young women and girls with eating disorders
as a result of body image issues that are tied somewhat to media
imagery. And though this issue has been highlighted more aggressively
in recent years the reaction from the media has often been to create
ever more unrealistic or unattainable images. Computer manipulation
creates "perfection" that is simply unnatural. Celebrity use of
plastic surgery is commonplace and the practices more accessible to
younger patients. And our media generally celebrates this "beauty" as
it totally ignores the prospect of inner-beauty that is unfortunately
non-visual and therefore harder to sell.

Religious (and political) dogma: This one is more insidious than the
others in the way it can help foster hate and fear, as with the
Christian Conservative Right and their political messages. Media plays
a strong role in enabling, creating and decimating these messages.
Certainly there are many religious topics and ideas that can be
presented in a positive and socially beneficial manner. But dogma, by
its very nature, is oppressive and can subtly influence many aspects of
a person's life. Without dogma, there are no religious hate crimes.
Dogma actually creates conflict between belief systems and forces
perspective changes upon formerly objective information. In news
publications and broadcasts it is easy to pinpoint how "spin" effects
the flavor of the news, whether it instills fear or hope or neither.
Fear sells, that is an unfortunately accepted part of the news
business. And our media embraces this understanding, generating a
fearful populace as much as possible in order to sell papers, magazines
and television programming. When the mind is frightened it is also
somewhat less rational, which allows for the absorption of dogmatic
ideals, even if only temporarily. This can be seen in any example from
modern history where a country has pushed toward war. The media
creates the environment for war to be acceptable, then obligatory, even
if it involves being at war with a country's own people. On a lesser,
but more common note, messages sway individual actions and even minor
cues can lead toward major actions in the susceptible. A media
producer or creator must understand what he or she is capable of and
weigh the results of pushing particular buttons. Whether an
unintentionally inspired hate crime results or a completely intentional
attack transpires is only a matter of degrees.

There is still room for all of these things, inside of some reasonable
context. One cannot create truly philosophical works if one is limited
in terms of subjects on which to ruminate. However, even keeping in
mind commercial considerations (as we all strive to profit from what we
create), there must be a way to balance profit with responsibility.
There is no excuse for forcing inappropriate imagery upon an audience
that does not want it. There is no excuse for polluting the psyche of
a developing mind. Unfortunately, especially in urban centers, there
is virtually no way to prevent a child from media exposure. So the
media itself must take some part in cultivating an environment that is
going to foster a positive society without reducing our freedom of
expression. Although we are all free to say hurtful things, most
people will generally think better of it most of the time. It isn't
about being censored, it's just about biting one's tongue at the
appropriate time and being a constructive member of a community. Media
producers, creators and distributors need to act the same way.

Does media need tighter regulation?

Not at all — there should be no limits on expression.

There should be legal constraints on everything in commercial media.

It's all good the way it is now.

Content producers and providers should initiate greater responsibilty for the messages they present.

It's always a nice surprise to discover that you have been quoted as a respectable source.

Jimmy Jam

6 years ago

Okay, at first I thought I was reading something by a conservative whacko, then I got to wondering if this was just liberal gibberish gone wild... but by the end I was thinking, okay, this is just reasoned thinking. Imagine that. It makes sense and I am totally re-evaluating how I let my kids experience the media around them. I'm sure as heck going to talk to them about everything they see on TV.

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